The Way Back: Restoring the Promise of America

by F. H. Buckley

Overview

The promise of America is that, with ambition and hard work, anyone can rise to the top. But now the promise has been broken, and we’ve become an aristocracy where rich parents raise rich kids and poor parents raise poor kids.

We’ve been told that the changes are structural, that there’s nothing we can do about this. But that doesn’t explain why other First World countries are beating us hands down on the issue of mobility.

What's different about America is our politics. An ostensibly progressive New Class of comfortably rich professionals, media leaders, and academics has shaped the contours of American politics and given us a country of fixed economic classes. It is supported by the poorest of Americans, who have little chance to rise, an alliance of both ends against the middle that recalls the Red Tories of parliamentary countries. Because they support an aristocracy, the members of the New Class are Tories, and because of their feigned concern for the poor, they are Red Tories.

The Way Back explains the revolution in American politics, where political insurgents have challenged the complacent establishment of both parties, and shows how we can restore the promise of economic mobility and equality by pursuing socialist ends through capitalist means.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594039591
Publisher:	Encounter Books
Publication date:	11/14/2017
Edition description:	First Trade Paper Edition
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

F.H. Buckley is a Foundation Professor at George Mason University’s Scalia School of Law. He is a frequent media guest and has appeared on Morning Joe, CNN, Rush Limbaugh, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, Newsmax, Radio France, the CBC, NPR, and many others.

He is a Senior Editor at The American Spectator, a columnist for the New York Post, and has written for the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, US News, National Review, the American Conservative, the New Criterion, Real Clear Politics, the National Post, the Telegraph, amongst many others.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Paperback Edition xiii

Acknowledgments xxv

1 Socialist Ends, Capitalist Means 3

Things We Can't Change 7

Legacy Nation 10

Things We Can Change 14

Part I The Idea of America

2 Up from Aristocracy 19

Alexander Hamilton Stumbles 20

An Aristocratic Colony 22

A Revolution of Ideas 26

3 The Invention of the American Dream 31

A Natural Aristocracy 32

The Transformation of America 34

The Promise Renewed 38

Part II The Way We Are Now

4 Unequal and Immobile 45

Inequality 48

Immobility 54

Inequality Hardens into Immobility 56

5 Why Republicans Should Care about Income Immobility 61

Not Just the Left 62

The Fragiles Come out to Vote 65

6 Why Conservatives Should Care about Income Immobility 71

Why We Need Intermediate Organizations 72

Have Intermediate Organizations Declined? 74

What's Immobility Got to Do with It? 78

7 Why Libertarians Should Care about Income Immobility 81

8 Why Everyone Should Care about Income Immobility 87

Wealth 87

Happiness 89

Part III Things We (Mostly) Cant Change: Technology, Taxes, Welfare, Culture, Genes

9 The Move to an Information Economy 99

Is Technological Change Skill-based? 101

Has Technological Change Recently Increased? 105

A Supply-side Explanation? 108

10 Globalization 111

The Loss of Low-tech Jobs 112

The New Global Super-rich 114

11 The Limits of Public Policy 119

Stingy Welfare Benefits? 119

Low Tax Rates? 121

Campaign Finance Reform? 125

12 Living with Immobility 131

Inherited Wealth 132

Environment and Culture 133

Genoeconomics 139

Part IV Things We (Mostly) Can't Change: The Aristocrat Abides

13 Darwinian Immobility 145

The Bequest Motive 146

Relative Preferences 154

Spite 156

14 The New Class 161

Reciprocal Altruism 162

Green Beards, Networks, and Reputations 163

Class Markers 166

Politics as a Green Beard 175

15 Red Tories 179

Maypoles on the Village Green 179

Heroism and Hubris 185

Sealing the Deal 190

Part V Things We Can Change

16 Education 197

The Promise Made 199

The Promise Broken 207

The Enemies of Promise 210

17 Immigration 219

A Nation of Immigrants 220

The 1965 Immigration Act 222

Opportunity Costs 226

18 Crony Nation 231

Benign Neglect 232

Licensing Entrepreneurs 237

Romancing Wall Street 241

Tax Subsidies for the Rich 245

Coporate Law Malfunctions 249

19 Criminalizing Entrepreneurship 253

The United States of Crime 254

A System Designed to Convict 257

Enemies of the People 260

20 The Rule of Lawyers 267

21 The Way Back 275

A Wish List 276

Endless History 278

Reversing 281

Appendices 289

A Income inequality 289

B Píketty's Law of Accumulation 291

C Regression Analysis 296

D Altruism and Evolutionary Fitness 299

Endnotes 305

Index 351

Editorial Reviews

“The Way Back makes a persuasive case that social mobility, fundamental to the American Dream, has eroded, and that people both on the left and right need to deal seriously with the problem of inequality. F.H. Buckley marshals tremendous data and insight in a compelling study.”

—Francis Fukuyama


“Inequality and immobility will be the rallying cry from the left as the 2016 elections approach. That’s a great reason to put The Way Back at the top of your reading list. F.H. Buckley offers a provocative and important commentary on the underlying problems—dysfunctional schools, barriers to entrepreneurship, a broken immigration system, sclerotic government, special interest politics, and more. He dissects who’s to blame, what to do, and what not to do—with scholarship, wit, and insight.”

—Robert A. Levy, chairman of the Cato Institute


“Another excellent book! It is full of marvelously shrewd observation, as well as scholarship, both aimed at subjects of the greatest importance.”

—Jonathan Clark


“The Way Back demonstrates that inequality and immobility are real and serious—and that nominally ‘progressive’ policies are a big part of the problem. The problem, moreover, is not unintended consequences—but rather intended consequences. With his signature combination of erudition, imagination, and wit, F.H. Buckley has produced a game-changing contribution to the inequality literature.”

—Christopher DeMuth

From the Publisher